Street Food

Street food around the world has been heralded on cooking shows by the likes of Andrew Zimmern and Anthony Bourdain.  Asian street food seems to capture the award for variety and as we've all seen Zimmern demonstrate, it is unusual.  India is no exception although I don't think what I've seen in Bangalore will make Bourdain's top ten list any time soon.  Wait, I take that back.  There are some chats and Pani Puris that might just qualify.  These items are hard to describe.  They are delightful combinations of texture and taste; sweet, salty, hot and sour; crispy, cruncy, soft and wet all in one dish.  Other street dishes are simple and straight forward.  In this post I have tried to capture some of the variety here in Bangalore.

These pictures were taken in two locations not far from each other.  SJP road selliing electronics and Avenue road specializing in text books and stationery items.  Both districts are in "old" Bangalore and according to Nagaraj, my driver, known for good street food.

Start with this series.  Fried chili peppers and slices of India's version of Wonder bread.  Dipped in a batter made of ground lentils and fried in hot oil.  The peppers are served with a red sauce of some kind and the fried bread is served with a green chutney.  Avoid the green chutney.  It is thinned with water of unknown origins.  The fried bread reminded me of our own fried twinkies.

The raw ingredients

Slices of fried bread and a pot of the dreaded green chutney.

More fried bread as it comes out of the oil.  Did the Chinese steal the Wok from the Indians?  Those guys pirate everything.  Price:  about $0.30

This is sugar cane juice.  Sold by the glassful, taken right out of the cane and often flavored with ginger or some other aromatic.  In our part of the world we take another step and make delicious sirups.  These guys stop here.  I have not tried this and don't know the price.

These next two are tender coconut.  The top is whacked off to fashion an opening for a straw.  Whacking with a big machete in one hand and a tender coconut in the other likely takes practice.  So far all the tender coconut vendors I have seen have had eight fingers and two thumbs.  After the juice is consumed, hand the coconut back to the vendor.  He hacks a sliver from the outside and cuts what is left in half.  Using the sliver he scoops out the flesh.  He hands back the flesh served on the sliver.  I have tried it.  Its OK.  Not as sweet as one might expect.  Price: $0.25.  There is a lot of lore about these tender coconuts.  They are not supposed to be consumed in the sunlight according to some and others don't seem to care.  Most everyone testifies to some restorative effect some even claim a medicinal aspect.  If you take a tender coconut it is supposed to cool you down.  I was not feeling well a couple days ago.  My driver, Nagaraj, claimed I was eating too much spicy food and my body was overheated.  His remedy:  eat tender coconut in morning for several mornings to "cool" down from the spices.  Believe me , I appreciated his concern even if I considered his reasoning shall I say "unorthodox"?  The times I have tried tender coconut have been rather uneventful.  No perceptable decrease in body temperature, no particular change in my aura although in one case I did feel somewhat refreshed.  I think it is an acquired taste.

There are two items shown next.  In the picture below and on the left in the double pane is a type of chat.  It demonstrates a combination seen here in India that is new to me.  Crispy rice, almost like rice krispies, is combined with chopped tomatoes, onions, chilies and some sauce for a savory cereal.  It is served in a paper cone and eaten with a plastic spoon.  I have not tried it but it always looks good.

The pane on the rignt and below the double pane, roasted peanuts.  They are roasted in that wok filled with sand.  I haven't watched to see how they remove all the sand, but they do. This is one of my favorites.  I have it often in my neighborhood and there is never even as much as a grain of sand.  They are served in a paper cone for $0.10 to $0.20.

The next one is unusual, at least to me.  It is a bean.  A white bean, firmer than a great northern.  They are piled on the cart cooked.  It is served with a marsala mixed in a cup.  Chili powder, onion and tomato are mixed together in the cup.  The beans are added, all is mixed and dumped into a paper cone.  By the way all the paper cones mentioned here are fashioned from the pages of discarded magazines.  Little is wasted.  I suppose in part because there don't seem to be landfills.  Maybe there are but I haven't seen them or seen anything to make me believe they are in use.  Everything that is not thrown in the rivers and streams seems to be discarded on sidewalks and in the street.  Back to the beans.  They are good and I suppose good for you as snacks go.  I have had them several times: $0.20.

This is Pani Puri.  Another type of chat.  I have not tried this yet.  It looks like another interesting combination of textures.

I have to say this next one was my favorite on this outing.  It's a sandwich, a panini of sorts.  A street panini made using very little resource.  A small gas burner and a sandwich cooker coated, no caked, with carbon.  So caked that it took me a minute to figure out what it was.  The sandwich is made with Indian wonder bread.  There is a green chutney, onions, cucumbers and tomatoes.  Since the green chutney is cooked, it is not dreaded.   The whole thing is clamped into the sandwich vise right behind a big dollup of butter.  The vendor holds the vise over the small gas flame until the perfect moment; out pops the toasted sandwich.  My guess is the generous coating of cabon on the vise is a big part of the secret; experience is the rest. If he cleaned the vice the sandwiches would probablly not be good.  Price: $0.30.

He's ready for an order.

So are these.

Note the dollup of butter in the vice.

The carbon coating is the secret.

A perfectly toasted sandwich every time.

He was actually smiling and looking at the sandwich until he saw me with a camera.

Corn.  Nothing very exotic here.  It's prepared a couple of different ways.  Char grilled or boiled.  I have tasted char grilled.  It was OK.

This is char grilled.  Note the characoal  on the lh corner of the cart.

This is boiled.  Note the pot.

Fruit.  Always good to look at.  Always looks very apetizing.  I have not tried it.  This looks like some form of papaya.

More fruit.

This is jack fruit, aka durian.  It smells so bad it is outlawed in confined areas.  I tried it in Kerala.  Not bad and what I had didn't smell.

Finally, I don't know what this is but I'm pretty sure it's edible.